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AN ADDRESS 



^ife, (!iy;micttr anb Snbicts 



WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 

DELIVERED AT THE REQUEST OP 

goth liott.SfSi of the ^rgi.slatuu of ITm "^oxU, 

AT ALBANY, APRIL 18, 1873, 



/ 
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



ALBANY: 

WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY. 
1873. 



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|(n |%»toiiam. 



PROCEEDINGS 



legislature of the ^UU of ^t\v Uotfe 



ON THE DEATH OP 



^x-^ovcriior ^illiitm ^. ^eiiaril. 



State of Neto ©orfe: 



On motion of Mr. Perry : 



IN SENATE, 

January 32, 1873. 



Resolved, That a select committee of three be appointed, 
on the part of the Senate, to meet witli a committee on the part 
of the Assembly, to report resolutions expressive of the sense 
of the Legislature, relative to the decease of ex-Governor 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, and that, if the Assembly concur 
therein, the Senate will meet at 12 o'clock noon, on Friday, the 
24th instant, for hearing the report of said committee. 

The President appointed as, such committee, on 
the part of the Senate, Senators Perry, Woodin 
and Johnson. 



Legislative P 



EGISLATIVE -PROCEEDINGS. 



IN ASSEMBLY, 

January 23, 1873. 

Resolved, That the Assembly do concur in the resolution 
adopted by the Senate, relative to the death of ex-Governor 
SEWARD; and that Messrs. Clapp, Van Cott, Blackie, 
Beebe and McGuiRE be appointed as such committee on the 
part of the Assembly. 

The joint committee, to which the subject was 
referred, reported the following preamble and resolu- 
tions, which were unanimously adopted : 

Whereas, after the adjournment of the Legislature, at its last 
session, the country heard, with the deepest sorrow, of tlie death 
of WILLL^\M H. SEWARD, ex-Governor of the State of New 
York ; therefore, 

Rssoh'i'd. That the Legislature of the State of New York is pro- 
foundly sensible of the great loss which the State and the Nation 
have thus sustained. 

Resolved, That while we lament such loss, we still experience 
a mournful satisfaction and a loftv pride in recalling the varied 
and invaluable services which he rendered to his country; tlie 
acknowledged ability and patriotic zeal with which he, on all 
occasions, maintained her rights and defended her honor ; the 
purity of his character, the grandeur of his intellectual endow- 
ments, the variety and extent of his learning, and the industry', 
fearlessness and fidelity which ever marked his career, both in 
public and private life. 

Resflh'ed, That the Legislature of this State tender to the family 
of the deceased its sincere condolence upon the sad bereavement 
which has removed from the domestic circle its affectionate and 
illustrious head. 



T 



t 



Legislative jProceedings. 



Resolved, Tliat the joint committee be and they hereby are 
authorized and requested to make such arrangements as they 
may deem proper for the commemoration of the solemn event, 
by the deHvery of an oration before the two Houses by some 
distinguished citizen. 

Resolved, That, as a testimony of respect, the two Houses of 
the Legislature do now adjourn. 



Committee on part of the Senate : 



JOHN C. PERRY, 
WM. B. WOODIN 
WM. JOHNSON, 



Committee on part of the Assembly : 



W. S. CLAPP, 
GEO. M. BEEBE, 
CHAS. BLACKIE, 
DAVID C. VAN COTT, 
J. McGUIRE. 



In pursuance of the foregoing resolutions, the 
joint committee reported that they had tendered to 
the Hon. Charles Francis Adams an invitation 
to deliver the memorial address, and that he had 
accepted the invitation. 

The following is the correspondence : 



Legislative Proceedings. 



Letter to Mr. Adams, 
"state of new york: 

" Senate Chamber, I. 

" Albany, February 8, 1873. \ 
" Hon. Charles Francis Adams: 

^^'^ Dear Sir — I have the honor herewith to transmit an authenticated copy of the 
report of a select committee of our State Legislature, who were appointed under a 
concurrent resolution of the Senate and Assembly, ' to report resolutions, etc., 
expressive of the sense of the Legislature relative to the decease of ex-Governor 
William H. Seward,' which report has been unanimously adopted. 

" At a meeting of the two committees, held pursuant to the resolution contained in 
the report, it was unanimously resolve(i to invite you to deliver an address at some 
convenient time during the session, suitable to the occasion; and the undersigned 
chairman of the joint committee was instructed to communicate such invitation. 

" Aside from other considerations, the committee, in tendering this invitation, beg 
leave to state that, inasmuch as the deceased, on the occasion of the death of your 
honored father, delivered an oration to his memory before our State Legislature, the 
committee feel that noth'uig could be more appropriate, and nothing afford the friends 
of the honored dead a greater degree of satisfaction tban to have you, on lliis interest- 
ing and solemn occasion, reciprocate the favor by accepting this invitation. 

" Requesting the favor of an early reply, 
" I am, 

" Vours, very respectfully, 

"JOHN C. PERRY, 
" Chairman o/yoint Comntittee." 



Mr. Adams' Reply. 

" 57 Mount Vernon street, \ 
" HosTON, February iz, 1873. ( 
" Hon. J. C. Perrv, 

" Ckairma7i^ efc. Senate oj" New Vork^ Albany : 

'* Dear Sir —I have to acknowledge the reception, this morning, of your letter ol 
the 8th instant, and of a copy of the resolutions adopted by the LegisHture of New 
York, on the occasion of the decease of their eminent statesman, the late \Y. H. 
Seward. 

" On behalf of the joint committee authorized to act under one of those resolu- 
tions, you, as their chairman, have been pleased to signify to me their wish that I 
should deliver the address contemplated. 

" Profoundly sensible of the honor conferred upon me, I feel as if I could not decline 
the task, however unworthy to perform it. 

•' In accepting it, however, it becomes of some importance to me to know what 
period of time can be allotted to me within which to accomplish the work. As much 
of the material which I should wish to gather for the purpose must be found scattered 



Legislative f'ROCEE dings. 



far and wide, and the sessions of the Legislature are already considerably advanced, 
this becomes a question upon which my absolute decision must turn. I should be 
sorry to do a hurried or hasty thing upon so great an occasion. 
" I am, verv truly, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" charles francis adams." 

Second Letter to Mr. Adams, 
"state of new york: 

" Senate Chamber, i 

" Albany, Febrttavy 13, 1873. / 
" Hon. Charles Francis Adams, 

Boston^ Mass. : 
" Di-ar Sir — Your letter of the 12th accepting the invitation contained in my com- 
munication of the 8th instant, to deliver an address on the late Wiluam H. Seward, 
before the New York Legislature, was received this morning, and laid before the 
joint committee. 

" In reply, I beg leave to state that the committee have instructed me to tender 
their very sincere thanks for your prompt and cordial acceptance of their invitation, 
and to inform you that it is their opinion that the session of the Legislature will not 
terminate before the 20th of April. 

" The committee, therefore, will set apart for the memorial occasion any day prior 
to that time, which you may be pleased to designate. 

*' Very respectfully and obediently yours, 

''JOHN C. PERRY, 
" Chairman of yoint Cotntnittee.'^ 

The day finally fixed upon for the memorial pro- 
ceedhigs was Friday, the iSth day of April — the 
exercises to be held in the North Reformed Church. 

On the day designated, the Legislature and invited 
guests assembled at the Capitol, and, headed by his 
Excellency, Governor John A. Dix, and staff, pro- 
ceeded in a body to the church, where the follow- 
ing exercises took place, his Excellency presiding, 
assisted by Lieutenant-Governor John C. Robinson, 
President of the Senate, and the Hon. A. B. 
Cornell, Speaker of the Assembly. 



^.vcrcifjcfj at the ^hurtlt. 



ORGAN. — IN TROD UCTOR Y. 

Q UAR TETTE. — " How Sleep the Brave," - Rooke. 

Arranged by J. R. Thomas. 

PRAYER. — V-Y Rev. Rufus W. Clark, D.D. 

Almighty Father, we adore Thee as the Sovereign of the 
Universe, the source of our being, and the arbiter of our 
destiny. We worship Thee as our King, and render thanks 
to Thee for all the advantages and blessings of life. We 
realize our entire dependence upon Thee, for every faculty 
of our nature, and gifts of Thy providence ; and we seek Thy 
guidance in our daily duties. We thank Thee for the gifts 
of Thy Son, who brought with Him to earth, a heart that 
beat in sympathy with every form of human sorrow. We 
rejoice, that standing at the grave, He announced Himself 
as the Resurrection and the Life, to all who believe. May 
we have faith in Him, and in the power and fruits of the 
Resurrection. May Thy Holy Spirit descend and rest upon 
this vast assemblage; illuminating every heart, and making 
of every soul a temple of the living God. Do Thou guide in 
the services of this interesting and solemn occasion. While 
we mourn the departure of Thy servant, whose death has 
summoned us here to-day, we sorrow not as those who have 
no hope. We thank Thee for His pure and elevated char- 
acter; for the rigid integrity associated with his eminent 
natural abilities ; for his devotion to human rights, and the 
force and eloquence with which he defended them. We 



F 



XERCISES. 



bless Thee for his noble contributions to the cause of 
national liberty, and that in the conflict which his prophetic 
eye saw was " irrepressible," he was always found on the 
side of justice, humanity, and God. Standing on the plat- 
form of human rights and civil freedom, he publicly declared 
that if necessary, he would stand alone ; and we thank Thee 
that Thou didst stand with him, to sustain him. We are 
grateful to Thee for his reverence for religion; for his faith 
in the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour ; for his interest in 
the church, in Christian education, and in all enterprises 
that contribute to the extension of the Redeemer's King- 
dom. We thank Thee that Thou didst comfort him in his 
last hours, and that the hope of immortality dawned upon 
his spirit, as he departed from earth to Heaven. 

We commend to Thee the bereaved relatives and friends, 
beseeching Thee that they may ever trust in Thee, and 
exercise that faith in Christ, that will secure a reunion with 
the departed, in the realms of the blessed. 

We invoke Thy blessing upon all gathered here to-day, 
that Thou wouldst aid them in the faithful discharge of 
the duties of their several spheres. Grant that our rulers 
may be enriched with divine grace, inspired with pure 
patriotism, and be qualified to administer government for 
the best good of the people and the honor of God. Bless 
Thy servant, the President of the United States, and those 
associated with him in authority ; our national Senators 
and Representatives, and all holding positions of public 
responsibility and trust. May our Government reflect the 
principles of Thy divine government, that law and justice 
may be maintained, liberty preserved, and the prosperity of 
the nation secured. Bless Thy servant, the Governor of 
this Commonwealth, and those connected with him in the 



^XERCISES. 



administration of public affairs. We render thanks to Tliee 
for their disposition and ability to maintain the laws against 
crime ; and that while they would gladly extend mercy to the 
penitent, they have revealed the strength of the Government 
to protect the property, rights and lives of its loyal citizens. 

Let Thy blessing rest upon our State Senators and 
Representatives, that they may be inspired with the prin- 
ciples of integrity and a pure, lofty patriotism. May all 
realize that any advantage or gain, secured by the sacrifice 
of principle, ceases to be an advantage. May they possess 
the wealth of conscious uprightness, and the satisfaction of 
having faithfully met and discharged every duty. 

Bless Thy servant, providentially called to address us to- 
day. We thank Thee for his sympathy with the principles 
and character of the ilhistrious dead, and for his eminent 
services rendered to the Nation. We bless Thee that, while 
enabled to secure the rights of the American people, he 
aided in promoting peace between two nations bound 
together by the same language and religion, and by mutual 
desires to advance civilization, and extend the Kingdom of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

We pray for Thy richest blessings to descend upon the 
American Republic. We thank Thee for our free institu- 
tions ; our pure religion ; our system of popular education ; 
our social and domestic advantages, and the prosperity we 
have received from Thee. Thou didst preserve the ship of 
State in the tempest that threatened her destruction, and we 
pray that divine wisdom may continue to guide us, and 
Almighty Power continue to bless us. 

And now we seek preparation to follow our departed 
friend, whose virtues and services we are assembled to 
commemorate. Help us so to live that death may be life. 

[8] 9 



LXERCISES. 



!May the music of angelic hosts and songs of the redeemed 
welcome us to the Heavenly home. May we gaze with 
delight upon celestial cities, and temples of divine beauty, 
and meeting in the city of God, with a great multitude that 
no man can number, we will ascribe blessing and honor and 
glory and power unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and 
unto the Lamb, forever and ever. Amen. 

ORGAN SOLO. — '' Dead March in Saul," - Handd. 

READING of the Memorial Resolutions of the Legislature. 
By Charles R. Dayton, Clerk of the Senate. 

RECITATIVE and ARIA.— ''T\\& Trumpet shall Sound." 
Handel. J. R. Thomas. 

INTRODUCTION OF THE ORATOR. 

By Gov. John A. Dix, as follows : 

A quarter of a century ago, this very month, and within 
these walls, WILLIAM H. SEWARD delivered a memorial 
discourse on the character and public services of John 
Quincy Adams. And to-day the son of Mr. Adams is here 
to pronounce a similar discourse on Mr. Seward. Thus, 
with these two kindred ceremonies are associated the names 
of three eminent statesmen, who have shared largely in the 
confidence and respect of their countrymen, and who, by 
tlieir distinguished talents and the purity of their lives, 
have contributed as largely to their country's welfare and 
reputation. I present to you the Hon. Charles Francis 
Adams. 

THE HON. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS then delivered 
the following Address : 



THE ADDRESS. 



FELLOW-piTIZENS OF THE SENATE AND ^SSEMBLY 

OF J^Ew York; 

You have honored me by an invitation to perform 
a duty, from the difficulty of which I shrink, the 
closer I approach it. I undertake it only with an 
assurance that, were my powers equal to my will, I 
should erect a monument more durable than marble 
or brass. 

The subject is fascinating, from the wide views 
which it opens of the noblest career of human life, 
and the highest aspirations of mortal ambition. 
Whatever may be the value of the modern specula- 
tions touching the origin of man, it seems quite clear 
that his intellectual stature has not essentially 
changed since the era when we find, in Greece, the 
most difficult social problems discussed with a pro- 
foundness never since surpassed. It is in one of the 
familiar dialogues reported by the philosopher Plato 
as having been held by Socrates, with his disciples, 
that the question is gravely presented whether such 

11 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



a union be possible, in one and the same individual, 
as that of a philosopher and a statesman. What 
this combination means is admirably rendered by the 
latest translator in these words : " A man in whom 
the power of thought and action is perfectly balanced, 
equal to the present, reaching forward to the future." 
The conclusion drawn from that conversation was 
that such a person, ruling in a constitutional state, 
had not yet been seen. More than two thousand 
years have elapsed since this testimony was recorded, 
and the solution of the problem, with the added 
experience of an historic record, embracing the lives 
of sixty generations of the race, far more widely 
observed over the globe, is still to seek. 

HAS THERE EVER BEEN SUCH A MAN. 

Without attempting to enter upon such a topic, 
demanding a life-time of research, it may, perhaps, be 
permitted to me to observe that, from what we may 
learn of the career of all those who have since been 
competitors in this noblest of human pursuits, it is 
possible for us to deduce some general laws of human 
action valuable to bear in mind. Praying your 
pardon for my boldness, I would, then, venture to 
suggest that, by a comparison of the multitude of 
examples, we may readily reduce them all to a classi- 
fication consisting of three forms. 

The first and lowest of these embraces all those 



The Address. 



lives in which power has been exercised mainly for 
personal ends, with little regard to the public good. 
If called to give an example of this class, I should 
name the noted Cleon, of Athens, as delineated so 
forcibly by his contemporaries, Thucydides, the 
historian, and Aristophanes, the dramatist. But 
this type of a public man, called a demagogue in a 
democracy, does not change its essence by transfer 
to more absolute forms of government. The inter- 
ested flatterer of the people simply puts on a laced 
coat and becomes the courtier of a monarch or any 
other sovereign power, one or many. Cleon, stimu- 
lating the passions of the Athenians to the massacre 
of the male population of Mitylene, was only work- 
ing for his own influence, just as Ashley Cooper, 
Lord Shaftesbury, stimulating the treacherous policy 
of the Second Charles in Great Britain, 

"The pillars of llie public safety shook ;" 

and just as Manuel Godoy, the Prince of Peace, by 
his selfish counsels precipitated the fall of the pitiful 
Charles of Spain. 

This, then, is the class which works the injury of 
nations. 

The next, and second division, includes those who 
with pure motives and equal capacity address them- 
selves to the work of maintaining the existing state 
of things as it is. Their aim is to reenforce estab- 

13 



The Address. 



lished ideas, and confirm ancient institutions. Of 
this type I would specify as examples, Cicero in 
antiquity. Sir Robert Walpole, Cardinal Mazarin, 
Prince Kaunitz, in later times. 

2. This is the class which sustains nations. 

The third and last division consists of those who, 
possessing a creative force, labor to advance the con- 
dition of their fellow-men. Of such I find a type 
in Pericles, in Gregory I, and in Cartlinal Richelieu. 

3. This is the class which develops nations. 
Measuring the life of William Henry Seward 

by this scale, I have no scruple in enrolling his name 
in the third and highest class. In my mind his case 
bears analogy to that of Pericles,* with this difference, 
that the sphere of his action was one by the side of 
which that of the other dwindles into nothing. 

On this occasion it is not my design to follow the 
common course of a purely chronological narrative. 
It would absorb too much time ; besides which, that 
work has been already well done by others who have 
preceded me. It will suffice to state that Mr. 
Seward was born with the century, and issued from 
the college at Schenectady at the age of nineteen. 
Three years passed in the customary probation of a 
lawyer's office gave him his profession, and one year 



* Any reader curious to know more of the grounds for tliis opinion is 
referred to the character given of this statesman by Grote. History of 
Greece, volume v, pp. 435-9. 



The Address. 



more found him married. In the words of the 
sagacious Lord of Verulam, he had " given hostages 
to fortune," and very early "assumed impediments to 
great enterprises, whether of virtue or mischief" 
From that moment he could hope to enlarge the 
basis of his imperfect education only by snatching 
what he might out of the intervals of rest in a busy life. 
Hence it becomes proper to assume that, in the just 
sense of the word, Mr. Seward was never a learned 
man. In the ardor with which he rushed into affairs, 
the wonder is that he acquired what he did. To his 
faculty of rapid digestion of what he could read, he 
was indebted for the attainments he actually mastered. 

For it should be further remarked that, though 
he faithfully applied himself to his profession, it was 
not an occupation congenial to his taste. On the 
contrary, he held it in aversion. He felt in himself 
a capacity to play a noble part on the more spacious 
theater of State affairs. His aspiration was for the 
fame of a statesman, and, in indulging this propensity, 
he committed no mistake. 

The chief characteristic of his mind was its breadth 
of view. In this sense he was a philosopher study- 
ing politics. He began by forming for himself a 
general idea of government, by which all questions 
of a practical nature that came up for consideration 
were to be tested. This naturally led him to prefer 
the field of legislation to that of administration. 



The Address. 



though he proved equally skillful in both. Almost 
simultaneously with his marriage, he appeared ready 
to launch into the political conflicts of the hour. 
Commencing in his small way, he rose by easy 
degrees into the atmosphere of statesmanship. I 
distinguish between these conditions, not to derogate 
from either. In our past experience there have been 
many politicians who have not become statesmen. 
So, also, there have been many statesmen who were 
never politicians. Mr. Seward was equally at home 
in both positions. 

But, inasmuch as this made up the true career 
which he followed, I am driven to the necessity of 
considering it almost exclusively. And, while so 
doing, I am also constrained to plunge more or less 
deeply into the Serbonian bog of obsolete party 
politics. I am not insensible to the nature of the 
difficulties under which I lalior in an exposition of 
this kind. On the one side I run a risk of tiying 
your patience by tedious reference to stale excite- 
ments ; and on the other, of raking over the ashes 
of fires still holding heat enough to burn. All I can 
say in excuse is that, in my belief, no correct delinea- 
tion of the course of this eminent leader can be 
made without it. Permit me only to add a promise 
that, in whatever I feel it my duty to say, it will be 
my endeavor to be guided by as calm and impartial 
a spirit as the lot of humanity will admit. Happily, 



The Address. 



my purpose is facilitated at this moment, by the fact 
that the passions which so fiercely raged during the 
period I am to review are in a measure laid asleep 
by the removal of the chief causes which set them 
in motion. . 

The political history of the country under its 
present form of government naturally divides itself 
into two periods of nearly equal length. The first 
embraces the administration of the first five presi- 
dents, and the settlement of the principles upon which 
a policy was guided, as well at home as abroad. But 
by reason of the almost continuous embarrassments 
occasioned by the violent conflicts then raging over 
the entire Continent of Europe, the agitation of 
parties had its chief source in conflicting views of 
foreign rather than domestic questions. Hence it 
came to a natural end with the reestablishment of 
a general peace. The foundation of parties having 
failed, there followed an interval of harmony, which, 
at the time, was known by the name of the " era of 
good feelings." 

Suddenly there sprang up a contest, wholly new 
in its nature, the first sound of which the veteran 
Jefferson, in his retreat at Monticello, Hkened to that 
of a fire-bell at night. The territory of Missouri 
wished to be organized, and admitted into the Union 
as a State. An effort was made to affix a condition 
that negro slavery should not be permitted there. 



The Address. 



The line of division between the free and the slave- 
holding States was at once defined, and, for a time, 
the battle was fought in the halls of Congress with 
the greatest pertinacity. With equal suddenness the 
quarrel was appeased by the adoption of a proposal 
denominated " a compromise," and matters seemed 
again to settle down in the old way. 

The general election for the presidency followed. 
The evidence of the complete disorganization of 
parties was made visible in the multiplication of the 
candidates. Five aspirants were brought forward l)y 
their respective friends, four out of the five from tlie 
slave-holding States. In this state of distraction, it 
was not unnatural that the single candidate from the 
free States should have an advantage. He was elected. 

But four years later appeared a very different state 
of thinos. The slave-holdinsr States had then con- 
centrated on their most popular candidate, and, 
forming an alliance with a larw section of the 
popular party in the North, they effected a complete 
establishment of their power. Here is the origin of 
the division of parties which prevailed for more than 
thirty years. But it should be noted that this was 
predicated upon the basis of what was called " the 
compromise " estabhshed by the Missouri question, 
and a consequent tacit understanding that the 
subject of negro slavery was to lie as much excluded 
from political discussion as if it did not exist. 

18 



JHE /. 



DDRESS. 



The great State of New York had, by a division 
of its electoral votes, contributed little or nothing to 
the triumph. But, after the decisive result, an 
organization followed, which, by pledging itself to 
the fortunes of the new dynasty, succeeded in main- 
taining its ascendency for many years. This claimed 
to be the popular, or Democratic, party. In opposi- 
tion were soon arrayed the class, in the free States, 
leaning to conservative opinions in all questions 
connected with the security of property ; and with 
them were combined under the leadership of an 
eminent statesman of the West, Henry Clay, so 
much of the population of that section as could be 
attracted to his banner. This was finally known as 
the Whig party. It follows from this statement that 
the issues made between these parties were mainly 
confined to superficial questions of management of 
the public affairs or the construction of Federal 
powers. Hence it happened, singularly enough, that, 
for a considerable period of time, the disputes were 
turned in a direction which had no reference what- 
ever to the most serious part of the policy upon 
which the Government was secretly acting. That 
policy was the extension of the slave-holding power 
by gaining new territory over which to spread it. 

For it should be observed that, while a profound 
silence was observed at home, the new Administra- 
tion had not been long settled in its place, before 



secret agencies were set in motion, through the 
diplomatic department, to procure expansion in the 
(.Hrectiiin in which this object could be the most 
easily etfected. This pointed southwest to Texas, 
a territory then forming a part of the Mexican 
Republic. 

Such being the state of things at the outset of 
Mr. Seward's career, the first thing necessary for him 
to do was to choose his side. Under his father's 
roof the influences naturally carried him to sympa- 
thize with the old Jeffersonian partv on the one 
hand, while the relics of the slave-system remaining 
in the family as house-servants, the least repulsive 
form of that relation, seemed little likely to inspire 
in him much aversion to it on the other. Neverthe- 
less, he early formed his conclusicjns adversely to the 
organization in New York professing to be the 
successors of the Jefferson school, and not less so to 
the perpetuation of slavery anywhere. The reason 
for this is obvious. With his keen perception of the 
operation of general principles, he penetrated at once 
the fact that the resurrection, in this form, of the 
old party was not only hollow, but selfish. It looked 
to him somewhat like a close corporation, made for 
the purpose of dealing in popular doctrines, not so 
much for the public benefit as for that of the indi- 
vidual directors. Moreover, it became clear that, 
among those doctrines, that of freedom to the slave 



20 



The Address. 



was rigorously excluded by reason of the bond of 
union entered into with his masters at the South. 
In reality, he was, in principle, too democratic for 
the Democrats. Hence, he waged incessant war 
against this form of oligarchy down to the hour 
when it was finally broken up. 

On the other hand, the selection of the more con- 
servative side, which he finally made, was one not 
unattended with difficulty. The idea of a popular 
form of government which he had built up in his 
own mind was one of the most expansive kind. He 
applied it to our system, and saw at once the means 
of its development almost indefinitely. In the 
variety of details as they passed before him, whether 
it was legislation, education, immigration, internal or 
external communication, personal or religious liberty, 
social equalization, or national expansion, he viewed 
the treatment of all in his large, generalizing way, 
always subject, however, to the regulation of general 
laws. In this he was conservative, that he sought to 
change, only the better to expand on a wider scale. 
Neither by liberty did he ever mean license. So far 
as I can comprehend the true sense of the word 
" democracy," I have never found my idea more 
broadly developed than by him. It is far more practi- 
cal than any thing ever taught by Jeflferson, and throws 
into deep shadow the performances of most of his 
modern disciples. The alternative to which he was 



JHE f. 



DDRESS. 



driven was not without embarrassments, which he 
soon had occasion to feel. In allying himself with 
a party in which conservative views had more or less 
positive control, he could not fail to understand that 
his doctrines would sometimes inspire many of his 
associates with distrust, and some with absolute dis- 
like, even though they might tolerate a union for 
the sake of the obvious advantage of his eifective 
abilities. In point of fact, he soon became a repre- 
sentative of the younger, the ardent, and the liberal 
division, wliich favored a policy more in harmony 
with the nature of our institutions than suited the 
adherents to long established ideas. Yet these were 
not long in finding out that he was possessed of 
powers to direct the popular sense, which, on the 
whole, it was not expedient for them to neglect. 
Presently an occasion made him prominent in the 
State elections. The inconsistency, which he could 
not fail to expose, of the power of secret societies 
with popular institutions, as illustrated in the well- 
known story of the abduction and death of Morgan, 
made him, first, a member of the Senate of this 
State, and afterward raised him to be the Governor 
for two terms. In all this public service he is found 
boldly adhering to his broad views, even when they 
were so much in advance as actually to conflict with 
popular prejudices. He led so far that few could 
keep pace with him. Some even jeered, and many 



absolutely denounced him. The opposition was so 
stubborn, at last, that he decided to withdraw from 
the field. Yet the period soon arrived when the 
wisdom of his course came to be fully recognized, 
and the disputed points of his policy firmly estab- 
lished. 

I very much fear lest in this analysis I may have 
much too seriously- fatigued your attention. Yet, 
without it, I am convinced that I cannot illustrate 
the various phenomena of Mr. Seward's public life, 
or point out the difficulties through which he was 
perpetually working his way. 

Now begins to be felt beneath our feet the first 
tremulous motion of what ultimately proved the 
great earthquake that shook the party organizations 
to pieces. I have already alluded to the first hidden 
overture made by General Jackson to the Govern- 
ment of Mexico, through the agency of Anthony 
Butler. Failing in this intrigue to get the teiritory 
desired by purchase, the next stroke was to endeavor 
to steal it by the indirect process of colonizing 
emigration. I have no time to dwell on the details 
of that nefarious transaction, which, partially checked 
by the prudent timidity of Martin Van Buren, 
revived with vigor under the pseudo*-presidency of 



*This word is intended to signif)' a doubt wliether the decision hastily 
made in this case by irresponsible persons was a just one. It is much 
to be regretted that the precise position of the Vice- President, in such 
an emergency, had not been determined by the Supreme Court. In at 

23 



The Address. 



John Tyler, and was nltimately consummated with 
the sanction ot James K. Poll-:. 

But this daring- policv, however well covered at 
its outset, did not fail yradually to fix upon it the 
attention of numbers of the calmest and most 
moderate thinkers of the country least bound by the 
fetters of either political school. Taken in connec- 
tion with the arbitrary spirit manifested by the efforts 
to suppress by popular violence the proceedings of 
a luunlful of enthusiasts, who only claimed their 
unquestionable right to express in jiuijlic their objec- 
tions to the whole swstem of slavery, whether at 
home or abroad, their eyes began to open to the 
realization ol how tar the action of the Government 
and i)eople had drilled trom the original j)rinciples 
with which it started. V'ery slowly at first, luit 
steadily afterward, the public sentiment went on 
gathering sufficient force to make itself an object of 
attention to the leading men of the two parties. For 
some years, the ordinary discipline, so thoroughly 
estalilished among our habits, continued to resist 
even the heaviest strain which the slave-holding 
alliance thought proper to place upon it. But the 
moment caniL- when the assumption of the right 
absolutely to control the expression of the sense of 



least one of the tluee contingencies provided by the Conslitiiliun, lie 
could be only a temporary agent. It seems to me lie should have lieen 
so regarded in all. 



The y^DDRESs. 



the people, in the form of respectful petition to their 
own representatives, proved a burden too heavy to 
bear. The cord then snapped, and from that date 
the disintegration of the old organization may be 
observed steadily hastening to its close. 

The sentiment of Mr. Seward on the subject of 
slavery had been early expressed. Previously to 
graduating at college, he had passed six months in 
the State of Georgia, but he seems not to have been 
converted by his experience to any faith in the sys- 
tem. His first public demonstration was made in a 
Fourth-of-July oration, delivered at Auburn, when 
he was twenty-four years old. The passage is suffi- 
ciently striking, in view of our later history, to merit 
quotation here. Speaking of the Union : " Those, 
too," he says, " misapprehend either the true interest 
of the people of these States, or their intelligence, 
who believe or profess to believe that a separation 
will ever take place between the North and the 
South. The people of the North have been seldom 
suspected of a want of attachment to the Union, 
and those of the South have been much misrepre- 
sented by a few politicians of a stormy character, 
who have ever been unsupported by the people there. 
The North will not willingly give up the power they 
now have in the national councils, of gradually com- 
pleting a work of which, whether united or separate, 
from proximity of territory, we shall ever be inter- 



ested — the emancipation of slaves. And the South 
will never, in a moment of resentment, expose them- 
selves to a war with the North while they have such 
a great domestic population of slaves ready to em- 
brace any opportunity to assert their freedom, and 
inflict their revenge." In this passage, the deliberate 
claim of a power in the Federal Government to 
emancipate slaves by legislation is not less remarkable 
than the miscalculation of the force of the passions 
which led the South, in the end, to the very step 
that brought on the predicted consequences. Yet 
in his conclusion he proved a prophet. But he then 
could little have foreseen the share he was to have 
in controlling the final convulsion. 

Mr. Seward terminated his career as a State poli- 
tician with a very elaborate exposition of his views 
of policy, presented with great ability. It was wise 
in him to retreat, leaving such a legacy, for he thus 
escaped complications with local interests and rival 
jealousies, which render perseverance in purely local 
struggles such a thankless labor. It was this error 
which for a long time impaired the usefulness of 
another great statesman of New York, De Witt 
Clinton. From this date, Mr. Seward remained 
several years in private life, steadily pursuing his 
profession. The course of public affairs had not 
proved propitious to his party. The gleam of light 
shed by the success of General Hairison, in the 

26 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



presidential election, had turned to darkness by his 
death, and the consequent succession of John Tyler. 
Then followed the sharply-disputed election of 1844, 
when, for the first time, was taught to the manipula- 
tors of nominations a new precedent by which to 
regulate their policy. The lesson was this : That 
between a man of proved abilities, marked character, 
and long services, like Henry Clay, on the one side, 
and one comparatively unknown, with a brief, insig- 
nificant career, like James K. Polk, as candidates for 
the presidency, the majority of the people will prefer 
the one against whom the least can be said. I shall 
have to recur to this matter by-and-by in another form. 
But there was another and still more significant 
lesson taught to politicians on this occasion : This 
was, that the party organizations founded upon a 
compromise, excluding the vital issue affecting the 
countiy, were about to meet with another shock. 
The final accomplishment of the scheme of enlarging 
the slave-holding region, by the acquisition of Texas, 
was well understood to be certain, in the event of 
the election of Mr. James K. Polk. On the other 
hand, the course likely to be taken, should Mr. Clay 
prove the victor, was left uncertain. A demand to 
know his sentiments was made so imperative that it 
was not deemed by him prudent to evade it. Yet, 
a rent in the party was almost sure to follow, what- 
ever might be his conclusion. The result was a weak 

27 



attcniiit, in a letter, to reconcile opinions which had 
become too discordant to permit of such treatment. 
Mr. Seward, though he faithfulU' adhered to the party, 
was too sagacious not to foresee the effect upon that 
portion of it with which he most sympathised at 
home. A defection of sixteen thousand voters in 
New York turned the scale, and Mr. Polk was 
elevated to jjower. This was the first considerable 
fissure made in the existing parties, and it inured 
to the benefit of the so-called Democracy. But 
their turn came around ne.xt time, when they were 
wrecked on the same rock. Such was the inevitable 
consequence of persevering in the maintenance of 
a division wholly superficial and evasive of the real 
and true issue — the permanence of the slave-holding 
supremacy. 

The consequences of the election of Mr. Polk 
were very serious. Not only was the State of Texas 
introduced, but a war with Mexico followed, and a 
much larger acquisition of territory at the peace than 
had been originally contemplated. The engineer 
had been " hoist with his own petard." The success 
of the war had naturally brought into notice the 
military leaders who most contributed to it. The 
election of 1829 estalilished another precedent for 
the guidance of parties, which had been confirmed 
bv the experience of 1840. This was in effect that, 
as between a civilian and a soldier, both of them of 



marked character, and of abilities proved by suf- 
ficient service, the people prefer the soldier. General 
Taylor had very much distinguished himself by his 
Mexican campaign, and the Whig party seized the 
earliest opportunity of enlisting him in its ranks. 
All the old statesmen were set aside, to press him 
into the arena, and, under a military banner, once 
more to overcome the Democrats, as had been done 
with Harrison. But, unluckily for the harmony of 
the movement, it came out that Taylor was a planter 
holding many slaves, in one of the richest cotton- 
producing States. The notion of setting up such a 
candidate in connection with an anti-slavery policy 
advocated by numbers of the party, seemed at first 
blush too preposterous to be countenanced for a 
moment. Yet it must be conceded that Mr. Seward 
undertook the difficult task of advocating the incon- 
sistency. I will frankly confess that I was one 
among many of his friends in New England who 
could not become reconciled to the contradiction 
apparent in this proceeding. We had reluctantly 
acquiesced in the ambiguous policy of Mr. Clay four 
years before ; but when it came to this, that we were 
called to give even a tacit ratification of the series 
of revolting measures that followed, including the 
Mexican war, and still more to elevate to the highest 
post of the country, as a reward for his services, a 
slave-holder having every possible inducement to 

29 



The Address. 



perpetuate the evil of which we complained, it 
proved a heavier load than we could bear. The 
consequence was a very considerable secession from 
the party, and an effort to bring before the public an 
independent nomination. This was carried out in 
what has ever since been remembered as the Buffalo 
Convention. Simultaneously with this movement, 
a similar one had been made in the Democratic 
party, a section of which of considerable force in 
New York, dissatisfied with the nomination of Lewis 
Cass, ultimately consented to make a part of the 
same assembly. The end was the nomination of Mr. 
Van Buren, and a declaration, for the first time, of a 
system of policy distinctly founded upon the true 
issues agitating the country. 

But, however the fact may be in the details of 
ordinary life, it is quite certain that, in the conflicts 
of politics, the persons who try the hardest to press 
straight fonvard to their object not unfrequently find 
themselves landed at the end of the opposite road. 
The effect of the nomination of Mr. Van Buren was 
to make us, his opponents, contribute to the triumph 
of General Taylor, more decisively than if we had 
voted for him directly. This it was that proved the 
wisdom of Mr. Seward in holding back from our 
action. 

Yet, with the success of General Taylor, the posi- 
tion in which Mi'. Seward found himself seems to 

30 



The Address. 



me, even now, to have been the most critical one in 
his life. He had in the canvass allowed himself to 
be freely used as an instrument to conciliate num- 
bers of his friends, strongly tempted to secede. In 
order to retain them he had to hold fast to his own 
ground, and even to give assurance of his confidence 
that it would be ultimately sustained in case of vic- 
toiy. I have lately read with care such reports of 
his speeches during that canvass as I could find ; and 
from that perusal I am constrained to admit that, 
much as I doubted his good faith at the time, I can- 
not perceive any failure in consistency or in com- 
mitting himself to any policy which might follow, 
adverse to the expectations he held out. In other 
words, he kept himself free to influence it favorably 
if he could, or to disavow it if it should prove to be 
adverse. It was an honest, though not altogether a 
safe, position in case of success. General Taylor was 
made President, and simultaneously Mr. Seward was, 
for the first time, transferred from the field of State 
to that of National affairs. He came into the Sen- 
ate of the United States, not to leave it for tweh^e 
years. He came under circumstances of no trifling 
embarrassment. The new President was at the time 
utterly unknown to the public men, and especially 
to him. He had been elected by a party still greatly 
divided in sentiment upon the grave questions about 
to come up for a decision. The chance of the pre- 



t 



ponderance of a policy favorable to freedom was by 
no means Hattering. An inexperienced President is 
obliged to consume much of his early days in office 
in correcting the mistakes he commits, before he 
gets to an understanding with his advisers. I am 
very sure that Mr. Seward felt for some time quite 
uncertain what the issue would be. Every thing 
depended upon the natural powers of General Taylor 
to distinguish the true from the false path. Happily 
for Mr. Seward, he determined to be a-uided bv his 
counsel. 

A tract of territory had been acquired by the war 
far more spacious than had been contemplated by 
the originators of the policy, and now the question 
came up whether all of the excess should be dedi- 
cated to the use of freemen, or of masters and serv- 
ants, as Texas had been. In other words, should 
slavery be tolerated and extended indefinitely.? 
Early measures had been taken to pave the way for 
it, by abrogating such portions of the existing Mex- 
ican law as might seem in confiict with it. But the 
President determined to give no countenance to that 
policy, and Mr. Seward was left at liberty to come 
forward at once as an independent champion of 
freedom. 

It was a critical moment in the great struggle, 
out of which the Government was to issue either as 
an oligarchy, controlling all things in the interest ot 

32 



The Address. 



a class, or else in a fuller development in harmony 
with the declared objects of its first construction. 
A remarkable number of men of superior abilities 
had been collected in the Senate just at this 
moment, all of whom had grown gray under the 
existing organization of parties, and were little dis- 
posed to favor innovations. Mr. Calhoun and Mr. 
Clay, though widely differing on other points, equally 
relucted at the agitation of slavery. Mr. Webster, 
on his part, never could make up his mind to meet 
it fully in the face. All manifested a desire to resort 
once more to some form of compromise, synony- 
mous with a practical concession to the slave-holding 
pretensions. The immediate question was upon the 
admission of the newly-acquired Territory of Califor- 
nia into the Union as a free State. The advocates 
of slavery insisted upon tacking to it conditions 
inuring to the support of their system in other 
respects, as a consideration proper to be granted for 
their acquiescence. In other words, it was another 
bargain to uphold slavery. And now, for the first 
time, Mr. Seward came forth on the great national 
arena to try his strength against his formidable com- 
petitors. Three successive speeches — one on the 
I ith of March, the next on the 2d of July, and the 
last on the nth of September, of the year 1850 — 
displayed in the clearest light his whole policy on 
this vital subject. At the very outset he declared 

[5] 38 



t 



The Address 



himself opposed to a compromise in any and all the 
forms in which it had been proposed; and he followed 
up the words with a close argument against each of 
those forms. He then went on boldly to grapple 
with the oft-repeated threats of disunion, as a con- 
sequence of emancipation, in a manner rarely heard 
before in that hall. Casting off the shackles of party 
discipline, he used these memorable words : " Here, 
then, is the point of my separation from both of 
these parties. I feel assured that slavery must give 
way, and will give way, to the salutary instructions 
of economy and to the ripening influences of human- 
ity; that emancipation is inevitable, and is near; 
that it may be hastened or hindered ; and, whether 
it shall be peaceful or violent, depends upon the 
question whether it be hastened or hindered: that 
all measures which fortify slavery or extend it tend 
to the consummation of violence ; all that check its 
extension and abate its strength tend to its peaceful 
extirpation. But I will adopt none but lawful, con- 
stitutional, and peaceful means to secure even that 
end ; and none such can I or will I forego" Pro- 
phetic words, indeed, which it would have been well 
had they been properly heeded at the time by the 
besotted men who, ten years later, rushed upon their 
own ruin. 

It was in this speech, also, that he enunciated the 
doctrine of a higher law than the Constitution, 

04 



The a 



DDRESS. 



which gave rise to an infinite amount of outcry from 
even a very respectable class of people, who were 
shocked at the license thought to be implied by such 
an appeal. But it seems to me that no truth is more 
obvious than this, that all powers of government 
and legislation are closely restricted within a limita- 
tion beyond which they cannot pass without being 
stripped of their force. This limitation may be 
purely material, or it may be moral, but in either 
case its power is similar, if not the same. 

It is a familiar story, which is told in the books, 
of Canute, the great Danish conqueror of Great 
Britain, that once, when his courtiers were vying 
with each other in magnifying their sense of his 
omnipotence, he simply ordered his chair to be 
approached to the advancing tide of the ocean, and 
loudly commanded the waves to retire. The flatterers 
understood the hint, and were abashed by this 
withering illustration of the " higher law." 

In the declaration of his policy in these three 
speeches Mr. Seward was substantially supporting 
what had been agreed upon as within the line of 
the administration of General Taylor. And, so far 
as it was successfully carried out under his auspices, 
it must be admitted that it greatly contributed to 
remedy the evils anticipated from the slave-holding 
intrigues of twenty years. He was now, to all out- 
ward appearance, on the top wave of fortune, not 

88 



The Address, 



unlikely to infuse into the national system a much 
more consistent system of principles than it had been 
its fortune to contain for many years. A single 
stroke from the higher law brought all his castle- 
building to the ground. A few days of illness, and 
the President was no more. To cite the words of 
an old poet : 

"Oil, frail estate of human things, 
And slippeiy hopes below ! 
Now, to our cost, your emptiness we l;nnw. 
Assurance here is never to be sought ; 
He toiled, he gained, but lived not to enjoy." 

Scarcely could a blow be more overwhelming. 
The loss of the President was, in due course, supplied 
by the accession of the Vice-President, Mr. Fillmore. 
But with him came in the conservative section of 
the party, which had never reposed confidence in 
Mr. Seward. From tiiat moment he was reduced 
once more to his old position as depending exclu- 
sively on his own powers, and had, as before, nothing 
to look for in official influence but opposition. The 
turn of things was decisive. The leading advocates 
of the policy of compromise freshened up to their 
labors, and the result was the adoption of a series of 
measures passing under that term, which the purblind 
authors fondly hoped would indefinitely postpone the 
earthquake, at the very moment rumbling under their 
feet. This memorable compact, entered into by three 



JHE JK 



DDRESS. 



of the most eminent of our statesmen in the present 
century — Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster — 
will forever remain as a proof of their own infatua- 
tion, and of nothing else. They might just as well 
have attempted to stop the toirent of Niagara with 
a drag-net. 

One effect of this proceeding was soon made per- 
ceptible. It proved a death-blow to one of the party 
organizations. At the succeeding presidential elec- 
tion, the conservative section of the Whigs having 
failed in securing a nomination of a candidate to 
suit their views, rather than to vote for General 
Scott, understood to represent other sentiments, 
passed almost in mass over to the Democracy, and 
voted for Franklin Pierce. The result was, that the 
most insignificant and unworthy candidate ever yet 
presented to the suffrages of the people, in a con- 
tested election, was chosen by a greater majority 
than ever was given to the best. 

From this moment the course of things rapidly 
assumed a more natural and consistent shape. The 
new Administration was soon found to be entirely 
under the control of the ultra slave-holders, and the 
policy of forcing slavery into the unoccupied regions 
of the West was unscrupulously pushed with their 
connivance. With these proceedings began the 
ofreat reaction in the North and West. At last the 
election of 1856 displayed the fact that parties had 



The Address. 



thrown off disguises, and were placing themselves 
upon the real issues vital to the country. Although 
the result still favored the slave-holders, and James 
Buchanan was made to succeed Franklin Pierce, the 
severity of the struggle indicated but too plainly the 
beginning: of the end. From this moment the 
Republican party became the true antagonist to 
that domination. 

Mr. Seward now, for the first time, enjoyed the 
great advantage of being perfectly free from em- 
barrassments springing out of a union with paralyzing 
associates in the same party. He took the field with 
all his vigor, and the speeches which he made, both 
in the Senate and before the people, remain to testify 
to his powers, and his success. The effects of the 
new union, reenforced by the extreme policy adopted 
by the opposite side, were made perceptible in the 
steady increase of the minorities in both Houses 
of Congress. The opening of the Thirty-sixth 
Congress showed that in the popular branch the 
Republican party counted a plurality of the members. 
After a long-continued struggle, they succeeded in 
electing their Speaker. It looked as if the hand- 
writing would soon be visible on the wall. 

Then came the moment when a candidate of the 
party, at last thoroughly organized, was to be nomi- 
nated for the presidency of 1861. Mr. Seward, in 
his ten years of service in the Senate, had completely 

88 



The Address. 



developed his capacity as a great leader in difficult 
times. With the singular mixture of boldness and 
moderation which distinguished him from all others, 
he had maintained his ground against all the assaults 
made upon him by the ablest of the slave-holding 
statesmen in their stronghold of the Senate. He 
had known how to pursue that narrow path between 
license in discussion on the one hand, and personal 
altercation on the other, which is so seldom faith- 
fully adhered to by public men, especially when 
cunning fencers are ever lying in wait to entrap 
them. He had also enjoyed the benefit of ex- 
perience in his administration while Governor of 
New York, which had made him familiar as well with 
executive as with legislative forms of business. The 
older men of great note had vanished, so as to make 
his party prominence more marked than ever. As 
a consequence, when the nominating convention 
assembled at Chicago, the eyes of all were turned 
toward him as the candidate, of all others, the most 
distinguished by the qualities that recommend people 
to high places. A large plurality had been chosen 
as delegates friendly to him, and the general expec- 
tation was that he would be nominated at once. 
But it was remembered that, in 1844, Henry Clay 
was defeated because he had a long record of public 
service, from which many marked sayings and doings 
might be quoted to affect impressible waverers, 

39 



The Address. 



and James K. Polk was elected because nobody 
could quote any thing against him, for the reason 
that he had never said or done any thing worth 
quoting at all. Furthermore, the ghosts of the 
higher law and of the irrepressible conflict flitted 
about to alarm excited imaginations. Last but not 
least came in the element of bargain and manage- 
ment, manipulated by adepts at intrigue, which is 
almost inseparable from similar assemblies. The 
effect of all these influences united was to turn the 
tide at last, and Mr. Seward, the veteran champion of 
the reforming policy, was set aside in favor of a 
gentleman as little known by any thing he had ever 
done as the most sanguine friend of such a selection 
could desire. The fact is beyond contradiction that 
no person, ever before nominated with any reason- 
able probability of success, had had so little of public 
service to show for his reward. 

Placing myself in the attitude of Mr. Seward, at 
the moment when the news of so stranare a decision 
would reach his ears, I think I might, like Amicus, 
in the play, have moralized for an instant on man's 
ingratitude, and been warned by the example of 
Aristides, or even the worse fate of Barneveld and 
the two De Witts, not to press further in a career 
in which the strong were to be ostracized, because 
of their strength, and the weak were to be pushed 
into places of danger, on the score of their feeble- 



The Address 



ness. To be elected for the reason that a person has V 

never done any thing to display his powers of use- 
fulness to bring about positive results, would seem 
to be like making elevation to power the prize of 
the greatest insignificance. Under such circum- 
stances, a successful man might fairly infer that the 
selection of himself implied, on its face, rather an 
insult than a compliment. 

But Mr. Seward, when he heard of it, did not 
reason on this low level. That he deeply felt such a 
refusal to recognize the value of his long and earnest 
labors in a perilous cause, I have every reason to 
believe. For it was precisely at this moment that 
the intimacy with which he sometime honored me 
dates its commencement. I had been long watchinaf 
his course with the deepest interest, sometimes fearful 
lest he might bend toward the delusive track of 
expediency, at others impatient at his calmness in 
moments fit to call out the fire of Demosthenes, yet, 
on the whole, if I may be so bold as to confess it, 
fastened to his footsteps by the conviction that he 
alone, of all others, had most marked himself as a 
disciple of the school in which I had been bred 
myself In this state of mind I had indulged a 
strong hope, not only that his splendid services 
would meet with a just acknowledgment, but that 
his future guidance might be depended on in the 
event of critical conjunctures. 

[6] 4.1 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



I was at the time in tlie public service at Wash- 
ington, and much cast down on hearing of the result. 
Mr. Seward had been at Auburn, and was just 
returned. I had not seen the answer to his friends, 
written from that place on the 31st of May, signifying 
his ready acquiescence in the result, and, if I had, I 
might not have put entire trust in it as a full expres- 
sion of his inmost heart. The day after his return 
he called in his carriage at my door and asked me 
to get in and drive with him to the Capitol. He 
had never done this before, but I promptly accepted 
his offer. Full of disgust at the management con- 
trived to defeat his nomination, I did not hesitate in 
expressing it to him in the most forcible terms. But 
I found no corresponding response. I saw that he 
had been grievously disappointed, and that he felt 
the blow so effectually aimed at him. But he gave 
no sound of discontent. On the contrary, he calmly 
deprecated all similar complaints, and at once turned 
my attention to the duty of heartily accepting the 
situation for the sake of the cause. The declaration 
of principles put forth by the convention was per- 
fectly satisfactory, and it now became his friends to 
look only to the work of securing their establish- 
ment. 

Such was the burden of the conversation for the 
greater part of the way. The tone was just the same 
as that in the public letter, while the language was 

42 



The Address. 



more simple and unreserved. To me it was a revela- 
tion of the moral superiority of the man. I had 
heard so much in my time of the management 
attributed to New York politicians, from the days 
of Aaron Burr to those of Martin Van Buren, that 
I should not have been surprised to find him indulg- 
ing in some details of the causes of his failure. But 
there was not a word. An experience like this drove 
me at once to the conclusion that, if such deportment 
as this passed under the denomination of manage- 
ment in New York, I should be glad to see its 
definition of magnanimity. 

Neither were these merely brave words followed 
up by inaction or indifference. Mr. Seward entered 
into the canvass in behalf of his rival with the 
utmost energy. I was myself a witness and com- 
panion through a large part of his journey in the 
West. His speeches, made at almost every central 
point, indicate, not simply the fertility of his powers, 
but the fidelity with which he applied them to the 
purpose in hand. They still remain with us to testify 
for him themselves. 

The election followed, making a new era in the 
history of this republic. The slave-holding power, 
which had governed for more than thirty years, had 
at last ceased to control. No sooner was the result 
known, than South Carolina lifted the banner of 
secession, not having chosen to wait for any assign- 

43 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



able cause of liiicvance. Congress assembled at 
Wasliinuton to hold the last session under the 
administration of Mr. Buchanan. Tied hand and 
foot bv the conditions under which he had received 
his nomination four years before, his course had been 
faltering and uncertain, meriting praise neither for 
prudence nor patriotism. A strong appeal, immedi- 
atelv put forth, to the sound sense and sterling 
principles of the honest, independent citizens of the 
countrv, without regard to party, backed up by an 
immediate preparation, quietly made, of the means 
at hand to maintain public order, in any contin- 
gency, might even then have put in check the ten- 
dency of multitudes to plunge into evil counsels. 
It does not appear that any thing of the kind was 
ever thought of Treason iiad crept into the very 
heart of the cabinet, and a policy had been secretly 
at work to paralyze ratiier than to fortify the re- 
sources of the Executive. Every thing was drifting 
at the mercy of the winds and waves. One single 
hour of the will displayed by General Jackson, at 
the time when Mr. Calhoun, the most powerful 
leader secession ever had, was abetting active meas- 
ures, would have stifled the fire in its cradle. But 
it was not to be. The evil came from the misfor- 
tune of a weak President in a perilous emergency. 
Instead of taking this course, a message was sent 
to Congress by Mr. Buchanan, lamenting the fact of 



The Address. 



wliat he chose to call a secession of several States, 
hut coupling with it a denial of any power to coerce 
them. This was in its essence an abandonment ot 
all right to control popular resistance in that form. 
In the condition things were at that moment, with a 
cabinet divided, and both branches of the Legislature 
utterly without spirit to concert measures, the effect 
was .equivalent to disintegration. Disaffection be- 
came rife everywhere south of Mason and Dixon's 
line. And, in the city of Washington itself, it became 
difficult to find, among the residents, persons wholly 
free from it. Rumors of some impending cot(p d'e^a^ 
vaguely floated in eveiy breeze. From communica- 
tions made to me by persons likely to know, I have 
every reason to think such projects were entertained 
by the class of more desperate adventurers. A plan 
of attacking the Constitution in its weakest part, 
the form of declaring the election of President in 
the month of February, had been gravely con- 
sidered. Happily for the public peace, there was no 
leader at hand equal to the consummation of any 
such enterprise, so that more moderate counsels, 
based upon the not unreasonable confidence that 
victory was more sure by letting matters take their 
course, prevailed. 

If such was the condition of the disaffected party, 
it was scarcely better with the loyal side. The 
President-elect was still at home in Illinois, giving 

48 



The Address. 



no signs of life, and there was no one of the faithful 
men vested with authority to speak or act in his 
behalf That something ought to be done to keep 
the control of the capital, and bridge over the inter- 
val before the 4th of March in peace and quiet, was 
manifest. It was no time to go into consultations 
that would inevitably lead to delays, if not to dissen- 
sions. Neither was it wise to spread uneasiness and 
alarm. In this emergency, I have it in my power to 
speak only of what I know Mr. Seward effected on 
his sole responsibility. Of his calmness in the 
midst of difficulty, of his fertility in resource, of his 
courage in at once breaking up the remnants of 
party ties, and combining, as firmly as he could, 
trusty men, whether in the cabinet, in the army, in 
the municipal boards, or elsewhere, to secure the 
object of keeping every thing steady, I had abun- 
dant evidence. The hearty cooperation of Gen- 
eral Scott, then Commander-in-Chief, although 
suiTounded by less than even lukewarm assistants, 
proved of the highest value. The day is, perhaps, 
not yet come, if it ever does, when all the details of 
these operations will be disclosed. But, if it should, 
it will only add one more to the many causes of 
gratitude due by the country to the memory of Mr. 
Seward. 

But, out of all the sources of anxiety and distrust 
heaped up in this most fearful interval, that which 

46 



The Address. 



appeared to many the most appalling was the fact 
that we were about to have, for our guide through 
this perilous strife, a person selected partly on 
account of the absence of positive qualities, so far 
as was known to the public, and absolutely without 
the advantage of any experience in national affairs, 
beyond the little that can be learned by an occupa- 
tion for two years of a seat in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. The selection of Mr. Polk and Mr. 
Pierce, on the same principle, though in a less 
degree, for both of them had seen far more of serv- 
ice, had been, in a measure, justified to the country 
by their prompt recourse to the best-trained men of 
the party, as supports and guides, in the cabinet. 
But this was in times of profound internal quiet 
when the State machinery moved almost of itself; 
while, in this emergency, every wheel appeared 
clogged, and even the tenacity of the whole fabric 
was seriously tested. Neither was it any source of 
confidence to find that day passed after day, and not 
a syllable of intelligence came. It was clear, at least 
to me, that our chances of safety would rest upon 
an executive council composed of the wisest and 
most experienced men that could be found. So it 
seemed absolutely indispensable, on every account, 
that not only Mr. Seward should have been early 
secured in a prominent post, but that his advice, at 
least, should have been asked in regard to the com- 



{ 



47 



The Address. 



plclion of Ihc organization. The value of sucli 
counsel in securing harmony in poHcy is too well 
understood lo need explanation. But Mr. Lincoln 
as yet knew Htlle of all this. His mind had not 
even opened to lln- nature of the crisis. From his 
secluded al)ode in the heart of Illinois, he was only 
taking the measure of geographical relati(Mis and 
party services, and heginning his operations where 
others comnionlv leave otf, at the; snialler end. 
Hence it was not until some time in the session that 
lie disclosed his intention to place Mr. Seward in 
tlic most prominent place. So doubtful had some of 
Mr. Seward's friends been made, by this proceeding, 
of I lie spirit of the Presiilent, that they were dis- 
posed to advise him not to assvmie any responsibilit}' 
uniler him. At least, this was the substance of what 
1 understootl him to sav, when he was pleased to ask 
of me my sentiments. My answer was very short. 
No matter what the manner of the offer, his duty 
was to take the post. At the same time, it was quite 
eli^ar to me that he stood in no need of my counsel. 
1 should have mistaken his chai'actcr if he had 
hesitated. 

Let me not be undei-stood as desiring to say a 
word in a spirit of derogation from the memory of 
Abraham Lincoln. He afterward proved himself 
before the world a pure, brave, capable and honest 
man, faithful to his arduous task, and laying down 



The Address. 



his life at the last as a penalty for his country's safety. 
At the same time, it is the duty of history, in dealing 
with all human action, to do strict justice in discrim- 
inating between persons, and by no means to award to 
one honors that clearly belong to another. I must, 
then, affirm without hesitation that, in the history of 
our Government down to this hour, no experiment so 
rash has ever been made as that of elevating to the 
head of affairs a man with so little previous prepara- 
tion for his task as Mr. Lincoln. If this be true of 
him in regard to the course of domestic administra- 
tion, with which he might be supposed partially 
familiar, it is eminently so in respect to the foreign 
relations, of which he knew absolutely nothing. 
Furthermore, he was quite deficient in his acquaint- 
ance with the character and qualities of public men, 
or their aptitude for the positions to which he 
assigned them. Indeed, he seldom selected them 
solely by that standard. Admitting this to be an 
accurate statement, the difficulties in the way of Mr. 
Seward on his assuming the duties of the foreign 
department may be readily imagined. The imme- 
diate reorganization of the service abroad was im- 
1 eratively demanded at all points. The chief posts 
had been filled before that time with persons either 
lukewarm in the struggle or else positively sympa- 
thizing with the disaffected. One consequence had 
been the formation of impressions upon the repre- 



'i 



m 



49 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



sentativ'cs of foreign governments calculated in some 
measure to mislead their policy Some were not 
unwilling to assume the question as already prede- 
termined, and to prepare to accommodate themselves 
to the result of a divided sovereignty Others were 
inclined only to watch the phenomena attending the 
dissolution, in order to adapt their policy to the 
variations, and take advantage of opportunities. 
Besides which, the failure of the greatest ex- 
periment of self-government ever made by a people 
was not without its effect upon every calcula- 
tion of possibilities nearer home. It may, then, 
be easily conceived what an effect could be pro- 
duced in all quarters by the equivocal, half- 
hearted tone prevailing among the American 
agents themselves. 

Yet, assuming it to be indispensable that the 
foreign seiTice should be reorganized, a very grave 
difficulty forthwith presented itself. The Republican 
party had been so generally in opposition that but 
few of its prominent members had had any advan- 
tages of experience in office. And, in the foreign 
service especially, experience is almost indispensable 
to usefulness. Mr. Seward himself came into the 
State Department with no acquaintance with the 
forms of business other than that obtained inciden- 
tally through his service in the Senate. He had not 
had the benefit of official presence abroad, an advan- 

80 



The Address. 



tage by no means trifling in conducting the foreign 
affairs. A still greater difficulty was that, within the 
range of selection to fill the respective posts abroad, 
hardly any person could be found better provided in 
this respect than himself Moreover, the President, 
in distributing his places, did so with small refer- 
ence to the qualifications in this particular line. It 
was either partisan service, or geographical position, 
or the length of the lists of names to commendatory 
papers, or the size of the salary, or the unblushing 
pertinacity of personal solicitation, that wrung from 
him many of his appointments. Yet, considering 
the nature of all these obstacles, it must be ad- 
mitted that most of the neophytes acquitted them- 
selves of their duty with far more of credit than 
could have been fairly expected from the commence- 
ment. I attribute this good fortune mainly to the 
sense of heavy responsibihty stimulated by the peril 
of the country, and the admirable lead given by their 
chief The marvelous fertility of his pen spread 
itself at once over every important point on the 
globe, and the lofty firmness of his tone infused a 
spirit of unity of action such as had never been 
witnessed before. The effect of this was that, from 
a state of utter demoralization at the outset, the 
foreign service rapidly became the most energetic 
and united organization thus far made abroad. The 
evidence of this will remain patent in the archives 

81 



The Address. 



of the nation so long as they shall be suffered to 
endure. 

It may be questioned whether any head of an 
executive department ever approached Mr. Seward 
in the extent and minuteness of the instructions he 
was constantly issuing during the critical period of 
the war. While necessarily subject to imperfection 
consequent upon the rapidity with which he wrote, 
his papers will occasion rather surprise at their gen- 
eral excellence than at any casual defects they may 
contain. Exception has been taken to his manner 
on some occasions as not in the best taste. And 
wiseacres have commented on his failure of sagacity 
in making over-confident predictions. But what 
was he to do in the face of all the nations of the 
earth ? Was it to doubt, and qualify, and calculate 
probabilities } Would such a course have helped to 
win their confidence? I trow not. In the very darkest 
hour his clarion-voice rang out more sharp and clear 
in full faith of the triumph of the great cause than 
even in the moment of its complete success. And 
the consequence is, that the fame of William H. 
Seward as a sagacious statesman is more widely 
spread over every part of the globe than that of any 
other in our history. 

But, great as were the services of Mr. Seward in 
his own peculiar department, it would be a mistake 
to infer that they were restricted within that limit. 



The Address. 



I now come to a point where what appears to me to 
have been one of his greatest qualities, is to be set 
forth. It is impossible for two persons, in the rela- 
tions of the President and the Secretary of State, 
to go on long together without taking a measure 
of their respective powers. Mr. Lincoln could not 
fail soon to perceive the fact that, whatever estimate 
he might put on his own acute judgment, he had to 
deal with a superior in native intellectual power, in 
extent of acquirement, in breadth of philosophical 
experience, and in the force of moral discipline. On 
the other hand, Mr. Seward could not have been 
lonsf blind to the deficiencies of the chief in these 
respects, however highly he might value his integrity 
of purpose, his shrewd capacity, his vigorous ratioci- 
nation, and his generous and amiable disposition. 
The effect of these reciprocal discoveries could 
scarcely have been other than to undermine confi- 
dence, and to inspire suspicion in the weaker party 
of danger from the influence of the stronger. He 
might naturally become jealous of the imputation of 
being led, and fearful lest the labors of his secretary 
might be directed to his own aggrandizement at his 
expense. On the other hand, Mr. Seward might 
not find it difficult to penetrate the character of these 
speculations, and foresee their probable effect in 
abridging his powers of usefulness, and, perhaps, 
unsettling the very foundation of his position, should 

S3 



ambitious third parties scent the opportunities to 
edge him out. 

Whether all that I have here described did or did 
not happen, I shall not be so bold as to say. But 
one thing I know, and this was, that, in order to cut 
up by the roots the possibility of misunderstanding 
from such causes, Mr. Seward deliberately came to 
the conclusion to stifle every sensation left in him 
of aspiration in the future, by establishing a distinct 
understanding with the President on that subject. 
The effect of this act of self-abnegation was soon 
apparent in the steady subsequent union of the 
parties. Thus it happened that Mr. Seward volun- 
tarily dismissed forever the noblest dreams of an 
ambition he had the clearest right to indulge, in 
exchange for a more solid power to direct affiiirs for 
the benefit of the nation, through the name of 
another, who should yet appear in all later time to 
reap the honors due chiefly to his labors. 

I am not going to touch upon the incidents of the 
great war. It is enough to say that Gettysburg and 
Vicksburg turned the tide ; and the Administration 
had nothing more to fear from popular distrust. The 
election confirmed it in power, and little was left to 
do but to heal the wounds inflicted, and restore the 
blessed days of peace and prosperity. Scarcely had 
the necessary measures been matured, and Fortune 
begun once more to smile, when the hand of an 

B4 



The Address. 



assassin, unerring in its instinctive sagacity, vented 
all the rage of the baffled enemy upon the heads of 
the two individuals, of all others, who most distinctly 
symbolized the emancipation of the slave and the 
doom of the master's pride. Then followed a suc- 
cessor to the chair, sadly wanting in the happiest 
qualities of his predecessor, but readily moulded to 
the very same policy which had been inaugurated by 
him. In his earnestness to save it, Mr. Seward sub- 
ordinated himself just as before. But the change of 
person proved little less disastrous to his hopes than 
it had been sixteen years before in the case of General 
Taylor. Nevertheless, he steadily and bravely ad- 
hered to the chief, for the sake of the policy, to the 
last, and quietly bore the odium of a failure he had 
no power to avert. It would have been worth all 
it cost, could he have succeeded. But, as it was, rarely 
has it been the fate of the same statesman to meet 
with two successive instances of such human vicis- 
situdes. 

In the spring of 1 869 he bade a last farewell to 
public life. The veteran who had fought for years 
for the establishment of the great principles of liberty, 
clear of all hampering compromises, who bore on his 
front the gash received because he had worked too 
well — a scar which would have made a life-long 
political fortune for any purely military man — was 
permitted to repair in silence to his home, now 

S3 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



lonely from the loss of those who had made it his 
delight, with fewer marks of recognition of his bril- 
liant career than he would have had if he had been 
the most insignificant of our Presidents. Such is one 
more example of the fate that awaits "those who 
hang on princes' favors," whether the sovereign be 
one or be many. And now his native State having 
bestowed on him all the honors within her gift during 
his life, with the natural pride in the career of so 
great a son, has sought outside of her borders for 
one of the humblest of his disciples to cull a few 
fleeting flowers and spread them on his grave. While 
I do honor to this manifestation on her part, I trust 
I may be pardoned for remembering that he did not 
save the State alone — 

HE SAVED THE NATION. 

Let me turn from this subject to the more agree- 
able task of pointing out to you some peculiar 
qualities of Mr. Seward, which merit close attention 
in any view taken of his character. Of these the 
most marked was his indomitable courage. By 
superficial observers among his contemporaries, the 
breadth of his popular theory was set down as little 
more than the agitation not unusual with most of 
our ordinary demagogues. Hence the prejudices 
more or less imbibed by many of his own party, and 
others who knew nothing of him personally. Yet 

B6 



The Address. 



the fact is indisputable that very few pubhc men in 
our history can be cited who have shown so much 
iuditference, in running directly counter to the popu- 
lar passions when highly excited, as he did. And in 
such action it is clear that he could have been 
prompted by no motive other than the highest of 
personal duty. 

Hitherto, I have treated only of his public life. 
I now propose to touch on his professional career, 
to which, though not attractive to him, he steadily 
adhered so long as it was practicable. Had he 
devoted himself to it exclusively, I have not a 
shadow of doubt he would have attained a position 
of the very first rank. I dwell on it now only in 
connection with a single case which will serve to 
illustrate as well his courage as his power. This is 
the case of the miserable negro William Freeman. 
The fact of his murdering at night all the members 
of a highly-respectable family in the neighborhood 
of Auburn, without any apparent motive, is too well 
remembered here to this day to need repeating the 
horrible details. It is sufficient to say that the 
passions of the people in all the country round about 
were fearfully but not unnaturally aroused. They 
demanded immediate justice with so much vehemence 
that, from fear of violence, extraordinary measures 
were resorted to by the State authorities to hasten 
the trial, in the very vicinity of the outrage. In the 

18] 87 



The ^ddress. 



State prison at Auburn it had so happened that, 
shortly before, a white convict had killed one of 
his associates. He had called upon Mr. Seward 
to defend him at his trial, and he had consented to 
appear. This act of his had not been viewed favor- 
ably in the neighborhood. But, when the crime of 
the negro was soon aftenvard divulged, the popular 
indignation rose to such a height that it was with 
much difficulty he could be conveyed in safety to the 
jail. So great was the rage, that nothing but the 
public declaration of one of the county judges, 
made on the spot, not only that he must certainly 
be executed, but also that " no Governor Seward 
would interpose to defend him," availed to shelter 
him from summary vengeance. Immediately after- 
ward, the law partners of Mr. Seward assumed the 
responsibility of confirming that promise of the 
judge, without consulting him. 

At that moment Mr. Seward had happily been 
absent from home. But, when he was expected to 
return, there was great anxiety among his friends 
and relatives, lest he should meet with insult, if not 
positive outrage, in his transit froiri the railway-station 
to his house. The excitement had scarcely abated 
when the two cases came up for trial. In the first, 
Mr. Seward endeavored to procure a postponement, 
but it was in vain. The popular feeling would not 
submit to it. With the utmost difficulty were per- 



The Address. 



sons found fitted to make a jury. The argument 
rested on the insanity of the prisoner. But it carried 
no weight. Within a month the convict was tried, 
condemned, and executed. In this instance Mr. 
Seward had performed his part in the regular course 
of professional service. But, when the offense of 
the wretched creature Freeman was about to be 
submitted to the consideration of the court, it 
immediately appeared that not a soul of the large 
crowd present entertained the smallest sympathy for 
him. He was told that he might have the assistance 
of counsel if he would ask for it. His answer indi- 
cated utter ignorance of the meaning of the words. 
Under such circumstances what was to be done to 
comply with forms of law 7 There was a solemn 
pause in that thronged assembly. At last the silence 
was broken by the judge, who, addressing the pro- 
fessional men before him, asked, in a hopeless tone, 

"WILL anyone defend this man?" 

And here again was a breathless pause, broken at 
last by a quiet movement of a solitary man, as he 
rose in his place, who, in the face of the eager crowd, 
briefly replied, " May it please the court, / appear as 
counsel for the prisoner." 

This volunteer was William Henry Seward, 
the very man whom the excited multitude had 
already warned not to interpose to defend him. 

59 



The Address. 



I know not what others may think of this simple 
picture, but, in my humble view, it presents a scene 
of moral sublimity rarely to be met with in the 
paths of our ordinary life. At this juncture, had 
William H. Seward been found anywhere at night 
alone, and unprotected by the powerful law-abiding 
habits of the region about him, his body would 
probably have been discovered in the morning hang- 
ing from the next tree. What motive could have 
impelled him to encounter so much indignation for 
this act ? He had been not at all insensible to the 
pleasure of popularity in public life. Here he was 
not only injuring his own interests, but that of the 
party with which he was associated. In vain did it 
labor to disavow all connection or sympathy with 
him. The press on all sides thundered its denunci- 
ations over his head. The elections all went one 
way. The Democratic party came sweepingiy into 
the ascendant. And all about the life of a negro 
idiot } 

I think I do not exaggerate in expressing an 
humble opinion, that the argument in the defense is 
one of the most eloquent ever made in the language. 
I have no time to dwell on it, further than to quote 
a few passages assigning his reason for his conduct : 
" For William Freeman as a murderer, I have no 
commission to speak. If he had silver and gold 
accumulated, with the frugality of a Croesus, and 



The Address, 



should pour it all at my feet, I would not stand an 
hour between him and his avenger. But for the 
innocent, it is my right — it is my duty — to speak. 
If this sea of blood was innocently shed, then it is 
my duty to stand beside him, until his steps lose 
their hold upon the scaffold. 'Thou shalt not kill' 
is a commandment, addressed not to him alone, 
but to me, to you, to the court, and to the whole 
community. There are no exceptions from that 
commandment, at least, in civil life, save those of 
self-defense, and capital punishment for crime in the 
due and just administration of the law. There is 
not only a question, then, whether the prisoner has 
shed the blood of his fellow-man, but the question 
whether we shall unlawfully shed his blood. I should 
be guilty of murder if, in my present relation, I saw 
the executioner waiting for an insane man, and failed 
to say or failed to do, in his behalf, all that my abil- 
ity allowed." 

And again he says : " I am arraigned before you 
for undue manifestations of zeal and excitement. My 
answer to all such charges shall be brief When this 
cause shall have been committed to you, I shall be 
happy indeed if it shall appear that my only error 
has been that I felt too much, thought too intensely, 
or acted too faithfully." 

But the significant and most eloquent passage is 
this : " I plead not for a murderer. I have no induce- 

61 



The Address. 



ment, no motive to do so. I have addressed my 
fellow-citizens in many various relations, when re- 
wards of wealth and fame awaited me. I have been 
cheered on other occasions by manifestations of 
popular approbation and sympathy ; and, where there 
was no such encouragement, I had at least the grati- 
tude of him whose cause I defended. But I speak 
now in the hearing of a people who have prejudged 
the prisoner, and condemned me for pleading in his 
behalf He is a convict, a pauper, a negro, without 
intellect, sense, or emotion. My child, with an atfec- 
tionate smile, disarms my care-worn face of its frown 
whenever I cross my threshold. The beggar in the 
street obliges me to give, because he says ' God bless 
you ' as I pass. My dog caresses me with fondness 
if 1 will but smile on him. My horse recognizes me 
when I fill his manger. But what reward, what 
gratitude, what sympathy and affection can I expect 
here ? There the prisoner sits ; look at him. Look 
at the assemblage around you. Listen to their ill- 
suppressed censures and their excited fears, and tell 
me where among my neighbors or my fellow-men, 
where even in his heart can I expect to find the 
sentiment, the thought, not to say of reward or 
acknowledgment, but even of recognition. I sat 
here two weeks during the preliminary trial. I stood 
here between the prisoner and the juiy nine hours, 
and pleaded for the wretch that he was insane, and 

62 



The Address. 



he did not even know he was on trial. And when all 
was done, the jury thought — at least eleven of them 
thought — that I had been deceiving them, or was 
self-deceived. They read signs of intelligence in his 
idiotic smile, and of cunning and malice in his stolid 
insensibility. They rendered a verdict that 'he was 
sane enough to be tried' — a contemptible compro- 
mise verdict in a capital case — and then they 
looked, with what emotions God and they only 
know, upon his arraignment. The District Attorney, 
speaking in his adder-ear, bade him rise, and, read- 
ing to him one indictment, asked him whether he 
wanted a trial, and the poor fool answered ' No.' 
' Have you counsel 7 ' 'No.' And they went 
through the same mockery, the prisoner giving the 
same answers, until a third indictment was thundered 
in his ears, and he stood before the court silent, 
motionless, and bewildered. Gentlemen, you may 
think of this evidence, bring in what verdict you can, 
but I asseverate before Heaven and you that, to the 
best of my knowledge and belief, the prisoner at the 
bar does not at this moment know why it is that my 
shadow falls on you instead of his own. I speak 
with all sincerity and earnestness, not because I ex- 
pect my opinion to have weight, but I would disarm 
the injurious impression that I am speaking merely 
as a lawyer speaks for his client. I am not the pris- 
oner's lawyer. I am, indeed, a volunteer in his behalf. 



63 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



But society and mankind have the deepest interests 
at stake. I am the kivvyer for society, for mankind, 
shocked beyond the power of expression at the 
scene I have witnessed here, of trying a maniac as a 
malefactor." 

There cannot be a doubt that, in this statement of 
his motives, Mr. Seward uttered nothing more than 
the simple truth. It was to rescue from violation 
tlie broad principle of morals, that guilt can only be 
measured by responsibility in the reciprocal relations 
of the human race. Yet, the jury brought in a ver- 
dict against the prisoner, and the judge pronounced 
the sentence of execution. Nothing daunted by all 
this, Mr. Seward persisted in interposing every pos- 
sible dilatory measure, until the evidence of the con- 
dition of the man gradually forced itself so vividly 
upon the conviction of the very judge who had tried 
and condemned him, that, when officially called 
upon to go over the work once more, he declined it 
as impracticable. Mr. Seward was now clearly 
proved to have been right, so far as his action had 
gone before the law. But, when the time came for 
the end of Freeman by a natural death, seven phy- 
sicians of the vicinity were summoned to a post- 
mortem examination of his brain, and the result at 
which they arrived was that it displayed indications 
of deep, chronic disease. Mr. Seward had been right 
from the start. He had upheld a broad general 

64 



The Address. 



principle at enormous personal hazard, and he never 
received the smallest return for it, excepting in the 
satisfaction to his own conscience of a work faith- 
fully performed. 

I pass from this illustration of the resolute will 
and courage of the man, to another of a wholly dif- 
ferent and still higher kind. I shall not weary your 
patience by going over the well-known details of the 
seizure by our gallant countryman. Admiral Wilkes, 
of the two rebel emissaries, Mason and Slidell, by 
forcibly taking them from a British passenger- 
steamer, then on her way over the high seas to a 
British port. You can all remember how much 
delighted every body was with the news. Few 
stopped to think of the possible consequences as 
affectinof the rio^hts of neutral nations. Some erro- 
neous precedents were published in the journals 
which quieted possible doubts. Admiral Wilkes 
immediately received the official approbation of the 
House of Representatives and the Secretary of the 
Navy, and rose in a moment to the height of a 
popular hero. Crowded public meetings everywhere 
joined in their acclamations, proudly exultant at the 
gallant deed. On the other hand, the effect of 
the violent proceeding, when divulged in Great 
Britain, no one had a better opportunity to under- 
stand than I myself It was at once presumed to 
have been authorized by the Government, so that 

[91 63 



The Address. 



no course was regarded as left to the ministry 
other than to demand immediate satisfaction for the 
insult. War was considered as inevitable ; hence 
provision was promptly made by many to remove 
American property out of the risk of confiscation, 
The dock-yards resounded by night as well as 
by day with the ring of the hammers, fitting out 
the largest iron-clads, and orders went forth to 
assemble the most available troops for immediate 
embarkation to the points in America closest upon 
our northern border. A cabinet council was 
j)romi:)tly assembled. Four dispatches were drawn 
up on the same day, the 30th of November, three 
of them addressed to the British minister at Wash- 
ington, Ltnd Lyons, and one to the Lords Commis- 
sioners of the Admiralty. All of them distinctly 
anticipated an immediate rupture, and made pro- 
vision for the event. One of these, very carefully 
prepared, instructed Lord Lyons to protest against 
the offensive act, and, in case the Secretary of State 
should not voluntarily offer redress by a delivery of 
the men, to make a demand of their restoration. 
The second directed Lord Lyons to permit of no 
delay of an affirmative answer beyond seven days. 
Should no such answer appear within that time, 
his lordship was formally instructed to withdraw 
with all his legation and all the archives of the 
legation, and to make iht; best of his way to Lon- 

66 



The Address. 



don. The fourth letter, addressed to the Admiralty, 
contained instructions to prepare all the naval 
officers stationed in America for the breaking out 
of hostilities. 

Looking at these proceedings as calmly as I can 
from our present point of view, it seems impossible 
for me to doubt that the issue of this peremptory 
demand had been already prejudged by her Majesty's 
ministers. They did not themselves believe that the 
men would be restored. Hence what seems to me 
the needless offensiveness of these preliminaries 
prompted, no doubt, by the violence of the popular 
feeling, which would insist upon an immediate dis- 
play of what would be called a " proper spirit." 
Yet, had it been judged possible to await for a few 
days the reception of official intelligence, then on its 
way from Washington, these gentlemen would have 
learned from Mr. Seward that they were precipitate 
in their action at least, and wholly without a basis in 
presuming evil intentions. Moreover, they would 
have had the assurance that the act was without 
authority, and that the Government was ready to 
listen to any reasonable representation that might 
be forthcoming. It thus appears that her Majesty's 
Government had placed themselves at the outset in 
a false position, needlessly offensive, and only prov- 
ocative of war without a cause. For the peremp- 
tory nature of the overture, however clothed in 

67 



The Address. 



moderate terms, merely complicated the difficulty 
of responding in any tone that would at all quiet 
the excited temper of the American people. 

It was the writing of that preliminary dispatch 
that saved the dignity of the country. Mr. Seward 
could point to it to prove that his action, when 
finally taken, had not been prompted by intimida- 
tion. The precipitate British course had betrayed 
the rudeness of distrust, and nothing more. He 
had been ready to hear and discuss the question 
impartially, end solely on its merits. But the people 
of the Unitea States had thought of none of these 
things. They were satisfied with the fancied glory 
of the deed, and \'ery far from disposed to sanction 
the smallest recantation. As to the demand for 
the surrender of the men, the thing was not to be 
thought of They must be retained at any hazard. 
Such was the universal sense, and it is this which 
generally controls the actions of those who hold 
office in a popular government. Yet the fact was 
to me clear from the first that the act was not 
justifiable. Many of the most enlightened neutral 
nations had signified as much in a friendly way, and 
had wished to open to us some easy method of 
retreat. A war with Great Britain to maintain an 
unsound principle, merely because the people made 
a hero of Admiral Wilkes, would probably have 
ended in a triumph of the rebellion and a perma- 



The Address. 



,^ 



nent disruption of the Union, furnishing ever after 
a new example with which " to point a moral and 
adorn a tale." When the time came for the assem- 
bly of the cabinet to decide upon an answer to 
Great Britain, not a sign had been given by the 
President or any of the members favorable to con- 
cession. Mr. Seward, who had been charged with 
the official duty of furnishing the expected answer, 
assumed the responsibility of preparing his able 
argument upon which a decision was predicated to 
surrender the men. Upon him would have rested 
the whole weight of the popular indignation had 
it proved formidable. If I have been rightly in- 
formed, when read, it met with but few comments 
and less approbation. On the other hand, there 
was no resistance. Silence gave consent. It was 
the act of Mr. Seward, and his name was to be 
chiefly associated with it, whether for good or for 
evil. That name will ever stand signed at the foot 
of the dispatch. In my firm belief that act saved 
the unity of the nation. It was like the fable of 
the Roman Curtius, who leaped into the abyss 
which could have been closed in no other way. 
The people acquiesced rather than approved, and 
to this day they have never manifested any sign of 
gratitude whatever. 

In 1869 Mr. Seward returned home to Auburn, 
the wreck of his former self The continuous con- 



es 



The Address. 



flicts of twenty years, and especially those of the 
last eight, with the assassin's knife, had told heavily 
on his frame. That home, too, was no longer what 
it had been, when the gifted partner of his life and 
a beloved daughter spread over it sunshine and joy, 
in peaceful times. Worst of all, the symptoms of a 
subtle disease, creeping slowly from the extremities, 
came to warn him that repose would be synony- 
mous with decay. Nothing daunted, he determined 
to fight the enemy to the last. He undertook the 
laborious task of a journey around the globe. 
What he modestly and yet sadly says of it himself 
is found in the reply he made to the welcome given 
him by his neighbors and friends on his return : " I 
have had a long journey, which, in its inception, 
seemed to many to be eccentric, but I trust that all 
my neighbors and friends are now satisfied that it 
was reasonable. I found that, in returning home 
to the occupations which were before me, I was 
expected to enjoy rest from labors and cares which 
were thought to have been oppressive and severe. 
I found, that, at my age, and in my condition of 
health, ' rest was rust,' and nothing remained to 
prevent rust but to keep in motion. I selected the 
way that would do the least harm, give the least 
offense, enable me to acquire the most knowledge, 
and increase the power, if any remained, to do 
good." The volume from which I quote, contain- 



The Address. 



ing a very interesting account of the travels of Mr. 
Seward, has been issued to the world since his 
decease. The turn of his mind, ever induleine in 
wide speculation upon the objects presented to his 
observation, is as clearly marked in this as it is in 
any of his earlier productions. Hence it is clear 
that, however impaired may have been his tene- 
ment of clay, the living principle within held out 
firmly to the last. This book likewise shows, though 
expressed in very modest language, that the fame 
of the great statesman had reached the remotest 
and most exclusive nations of the Eastern Hemis- 
phere, and had won for him — a simple private 
citizen — spontaneous recognitions such as hereto- 
fore, in those communities, have been extorted only 
by representatives of those sovereignties which they 
fear. 

And now the chief part of my work is done. I 
have tried to test the statesman by the highest 
standard known to mankind. His career covers 
the whole of what I designate as the second period 
of our history — that, pending which, the heaviest 
clog to freedom, a perilous legacy from our fore- 
fathers, was, after long and severe conflict, at last 
liappily removed. In this trial Mr. Seward played 
a great part. His mind, taking in the broadest 
view of practical popular government, never failed 
him in the useful application of his powers to the 

71 



The Address. 



removal of all adventitious obstructions to its 
development. He was never a mere theorist or 
dreamer of possibilities he could not reach. He 
speculated boldly, but he was an actor all the while, 
and effected results. It is in this sense that I think 
my narrative has established for him a just claim to 
the high position I assigned to him at my outset. 
He may not, indeed, rise to the full stature of the 
philosopher-statesman, " equal to the present, reach- 
ing forward to the futuie," never seen even in the 
palmy days of ancient Greece, or perhaps anywhere 
else, but at least he stands in the first rank of those 
admitted most nearly to approach it. 

But thus far I have considered him exclusively in 
his public life. The picture would scarcely seem 
complete, if I omitted a word about him as a man 
like all the rest of us. By nature he can scarcely 
be said to have been gifted with the advantage of 
an imposing presence, such as fell to the lot of Mr. 
Calhoun and Mr. Webster. Neither in face nor 
in figure would he have attracted particular notice, 
and both his voice and power of articulation were 
little favorable to the power of his elocution. Yet 
he had in a remarkable degree the faculty of fixing 
the hearer's attention — the surest test of oratorical 
superiority. His familiar conversation rarely kept 
in the dreary round of common-place, and often 
struck into original and instructive paths. His 



JHE / 



DDRESS. 



personal address was easy and careless, sometimes 
rather blunt. It lacked something of the polish of 
the most refined society, but there was a simplicity 
and heartiness in his genial hours that often brought 
one close to him in a moment. At times, when in 
good spirits, there seemed a superabundant glee, 
which spent itself in laughter springing from his 
own thoughts, more robust than could be wholly 
accounted for by any thing expressed. And yet it 
had a sympathetic power over the hearers almost 
irresistible. In his domestic relations he was pure 
and affectionate — ready to heed the monitions of a 
gifted and refined partner, and profit by her prudent 
counsel. Unhappily, her infirm health, breeding a 
strong inclination for retirement from the bustle 
and excitement of the society of Washington, ma- 
terially detracted from the influence, as well as the 
satisfaction, attending her husband's elevated posi- 
tion. Our forefathers would marvel could they 
imagine it possible for me to claim credit for Mr. 
Seward on the score of his honesty as a public man. 
Yet the time has come when we must honor one 
who never bought nor sold a vote or a place, and 
who never permitted his public action to be con- 
taminated in the atmosphere of corporation influ- 
ence. On that subject I had occasion to know his 
sentiments more than once. Above all, he was 
earnestly impressed with religious feeling, never 

[10] 73 



The Address. 



making parade of it, but never omitting every 
proper occasion to make it suitably respected. One 
of his finest traits was the calmness with which he 
endured all the various political assaults made upon 
him by opponents, and often by those of his own 
side. Few persons of his time encountered more. 
It is the nature of power always to raise a body 
of resistance in a relative proportion to the force 
of its own movement. Then came also the day of 
complaints raised by the large class fated to be 
aggrieved by disappointed hopes or imagined offen- 
ses, the arrogant, the incompetent, the rapacious, 
the treacherous, and the unscrupulous, always to be 
found intrenched around every fountain of political 
favors. Mr. Seward was never tempted to elevate 
the position of such persons by controversy, or to 
profit by opportunities for merited retribution, even 
when clearly within his grasp. To his intimate 
friends he was deeply attached. One of these who 
survives him — may I say his fidus Achates — 

" It comes et paribus curis vestigia figit," 

whose singularly disinterested labor it has been to 
effect the elevation of others to power, and never 
his own, and to whose remarkable address I strongly 
suspect Mr. Seward owed many obligations of that 
kind, has been kind enough to submit to my 
perusal numbers of his confidential letters, received 

74 



The Address. 



during interesting periods in the writer's life, which 
have been collected and bound in volumes. I have 
closely examined them, as laying bare the most 
secret impulses of his mind and heart. Yet, highly 
confidential as they appear on their face to be, I 
could not detect a single passage which, for his 
sake, " I could wish to blot." 

The line of great statesmen in America may or 
may not stretch out, 

" In yon bright track that fires the western skies," 

to the crack of doom. But the memory of him 
who guided our course, through the most appalling 
tempest yet experienced in our annals, can scarcely 
fail to confront all future aspirants in the same 
honorable career, as an example which every one of 
them may imitate to his advantage, but which few 
can hope to be so fortunate as to excel. 



Legislative Proceedings. 



(2UARTETTE.~-"lnitgtx'V\ix:' ... Fleming. 

BLESSING. — By Rev. Bishop CoxE. 

Organ Dismission. 

Subsequent to the address the following resolu- 
tions, offered by Senator Perry, were unanimously 
adopted by the Senate and concurred in by the 
Assembly : 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Legislature of the State of 
New Yorli be tendered to the Hon, Charles Francis Adams, 
for the eloquent eulogium on the Ufe, character and services of 
ex-Governor William H. Seward, dehvered at the request 
of the Legislature, on the i8th day of April, inst., and that a copy 
of the address be requested for publication. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to Mr. 
Adams, signed by the presiding officers and clerks of the Senate 
and Assembly. 

An engrossed copy of the above resolutions, duly 
authenticated, was subsequently forwarded to Mr. 
Adams by the joint committee, accompanied by the 
following letter: 

Letter to Mr. Adams, 
"state of new york: 

*' Senate Chamber, \ 

" Albany, May 12, 1S73. f 
" Hon. Charles Francis Adams : 

*^ Dear Sir — Herewith I have the honor to inclose the joint resolutions of thanks to 
yourself, adopted by the Senate and Assembly on the 29th ult. In addition, I beg 
leave, on behalf of the joint committee, to express to you their sincere acknowledg- 
ments for your kind acceptance of their invitation, and for the very complete and 
eloquent address delivered on the occasion. 

76 



Legislative Proceedings. 



'* Vou will observe that one of the resolutions contains a request that a copy of the 
address be furnished for publication. Entertaining the hope that you may be pleased 
to comply with this request, I have the honor to remain, 

Gratefully yours, 

*' JOHN C. PERRY, 
" Chairman o/yoi?it Committee.''^ 

The receipt of these resolutions was acknowledged 
by Mr. Adams as follows : 

Mr. Adams' Reply, 

** QuiNCV, May 14, 1S73. 
" Hon. J. C. Perry, etc., etc. : 

"" Dear Sir — I have to acknowledge the reception of your letter of the 12th instant, 
and of the joint resolutions of the Senate and Assembly therein referred to. 

" I pray you to accept, in their behalf, my grateful thanks for the manner in which 
they have honored me. 

" In compliance with their request, I beg permission to transmit to you herewith a 
copy of the address revised for publication. 

**I have the honor to be, 

*' Your obdt. servt., 

"C. F. ADAMS." 



77 



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